Examples of Community Projects

The students during MYP year 3 had the challenge of creating a community project in groups or individually. They had to identify a need in the community, based on personal interests, and make a proposal for action. The student in this example worked individually and took an interest in air contamination but did not want to work on one of the more common problems in everyday life such as pollution from cars. During the initial inquiry, the student found out that rice husk was one of the main causes of air contamination in the city. The owners of factories did not use all of it, so burned the excess. The development of this student’s action can be seen by her proposal for a new use for the rice husk and how this could also be a business opportunity for poor people.

The students during MYP year 3 had the challenge of creating a community project in groups or individually. They had to identify a need in the community, based on personal interests, and make a proposal for action. This student worked individually and took an interest in recycling at school. She found out that students did not use the bins adequately to separate rubbish. Her initial thoughts were to create a bass guitar using recycled materials that were thrown away; however, as her investigation advanced, she found out that the school only had the capacity to recycle plastic bottles and tops, which led her to change her proposal of action to have greater impact in the community by creating special bins. To draw people's attention, she used the materials that needed to be collected by people for the design of the bin. She placed these bins around the school and raised awareness among the students by making assemblies around the school to explain the purpose and to ask others to help collect these bottles and tops.

During MYP year 3, the students had the challenge of creating a community project in groups or individually. They had to identify a need in the community, based on personal interests, and make a proposal for action. This group of three students identified the need for food resources in the community and joined a local registered charity organization called Bread Run. Together they joined three bread runs to collect food from local bakeries and deliver it to those in need. Their aim was also to set up a collaboration that extended beyond the timeframe of the community project. The students’ school had an internal television station, so the students also produced a film detailing their project for others to see during an exhibition afternoon with students, parents and local community members attending. When students choose to complete the community project in groups, the assessment levels are awarded to the group, not to the individual student.